Teach Him What!
by Be3
Summary: AU. Kenobi serves in AgriCorps, Palpatine needs a new apprentice, Anakin is deemed too dangerous to train, and Qui-Gon is one with the Force. Or, rather, the Force is with Qui-Gon.
1. Are you Anakin Skywalker?

A/N: upon reading ardavenport's _Xanatos: Detached_, and realising there's more to Obi-Wan that we would like to read and no one seems to be willing to write, I & Sis decided to strike back post our opinions on Anakin's raising... so basically, it's an answer to the abovementioned fic.

This is an AU story where Qui-Gon never took Obi-Wan as his apprentice and was killed by Darth Maul, leaving behind him a nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker. It begins shortly after TPM.

He stared at a withered leaf.

Its crinkly roughness testified to days of neglect. He probably passed it twice a day on his way along the Muja Row, and never noticed. The others would probably say nothing about it, but he knew a Force-sensitive should have heard this cry for help and rescue the budding beauty.

He sighed, for there was nothing he could do but follow the protocol. Pinch it away at the base, add the F (NR) Solution as prescribed, check for parasites, remove to Quarantine if necessary. No. It was a simple case of drying, not infestation. He was free to go, but he placed two fingers on the peculiar pattern where the unfortunate thing had been attached.

The scar would heal in a matter of hours. Muja is a hardy fruit.

'Grow well, young one,' he whispered, hand falling back into his coat's pocket.

He quickly strolled towards the exit. Another youngling unfit for Padawanship was expected that day, and he had agreed to pick the boy up at the Station. Besides, if anyone saw him consoling a vegetable, they would tease him for having a favourite, and he didn't, really, he liked all "potsies" and what if he usually paused near some shelves for a minute or two? His old legs needed rest.

Nodding to himself for thinking up such a valid reason, twenty-five-year-old Senior Planter Kenobi rushed out of the humid hothouse.

He missed the collective rustle of disappointment, the turning of stems towards sprinklers, and the greening of the swelling node where a new leaf will soon unfold.

There was only one teenager waiting on the platform, and yet for a moment Obi-Wan looked around to see this Skywalker boy he was supposed to be meeting. The little mite was simply too little to be thirteen, and Obi-Wan was fairly sure that was the minimal age to be sent to AgriCorps. However, the child could belong to some humanoid race he hadn't yet encountered, so he stepped forward.

'Anakin Skywalker?'

'Yes...'

Obi-Wan's smile grew more sincere as he recognised the sulking tone. It was the surest sign of a newly discarded Initiate, though usually the answer was more elaborate. Perhaps he didn't know how to address an adult non-Jedi who had been raised in the Temple.

'You don't need to call me Master, Anakin, "Planter Kenobi" would suffice.'

Skywalker nodded dejectedly, looking at his brand-new boots.

'Come, our speeder is that way.'

That got a reaction.

'Speeder?'

Obi-Wan shrugged evenly. Having been warned about younglings jumping inside and driving off, he chose an ancient car specifically programmed to return to the Storehouse, though he would prefer a quiet ride to being stuck until another transport was sent.

'Cool!'

And Skywalker tore away.

Shaking his head, Senior Planter Kenobi picked up the child's satchel. He could have sworn, if only Jedi swore, that he'd heard someone saying, "I have a bad feeling about it."

He himself used the expression in his younger years, but in AgriCorps old habits died quick and painful deaths. All recently rejected Initiates were appointed tasks "just light enough to not break our backs", as his workmate Drasa Chen-Ko, a striking Corellian girl, pointed out every time they were visited by the Head Manager.

Speaking of the Manager, Chen-Ko would serve him his own ears if he were late for the inspection. She was striking in more than one way.

Obi-Wan shook himself from daydreaming. He hadn't been trained to be a Knight, but in his heart of hearts he knew he was as true a Jedi as they came. And Jedi pay attention to their surroundings. He fancied being thirteen again and having Master Jinn take him as a Padawan, tutoring him in all those enigmatic teachings of the Force. Right now, Master Jinn would probably frown and instruct him to "Padawan, it is bad manners to keep people waiting."

'What?'

He realised he again succumbed to unbecoming woolgathering, and coughed to cover his embarrassment.

Skywalker was sitting in the driver's seat with practised nonchalance, squinting at him warily. The nerve!

'Uh, it's on autopilot.'

'No it's not.'

The boy had the most irritating way of answering what one didn't really say. Obi-Wan only hoped he wasn't designated to show him around; he liked children - those who lived at the Farm, - but he also liked to be properly treated. There was nothing bad in wishing to be respected for working as hard as he did.

At that moment, though, he could only stare helplessly at the daredevil smirk on the young freckled face.

'Well it was.'

Skywalker shrugged.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes for a moment. He would give the boy one single moment of unsupervised plotting, to start the engine and shoot away, so that he would be caught by officials and get out of Obi-Wan's unused-to-pulling hair -

'Do you know how to get back?'

His eyes snapped open on their own accord.

'Of course I do!'

Skywalker bit his lower lip - a strange mannerism for an Inintiate - and hesitantly moved to the passenger's seat.

Obi-Wan settled in, activated the system, and ordered in a clipped voice:

'Home.'

With a shudder, the old piece of junk lurched ahead, and Senior Planter Kenobi cast one triumphant glance at his charge before the speeder stopped dead. Skywalker giggled.

'I said HOME!'

Again, the car started. Again, it stopped several paces away.

'I don't understand,' Obi-Wan mumbled.

'You've got to say it every ten seconds. The reiteration block is older than Master Yoda's home planet.'

'Oh.'

Come to think of it, he didn't know the manufacturer.

'I can set it right.'

They argued. It was undignified, and probably unwise, but the boy was headstrong and refused to listen to reason. In the end, Kenobi had no doubts about the reason of his failure to be chosen as a learner.

However, when they arrived to the Storehouse, both hoarse from chanting the blasted word the whole time, it appeared to him that he might have just done a fool of himself.

It was not something he would lose his sleep for; after all, he was trained to release his emotions into the Force, and being a fool in front of his juniors was a valuable experience. Obi-Wan remembered his own pouting and grumbling and decided to overlook his companion's moodiness.

Also, he would not ruin his lecture by croaking.

'We're here.'

He introduced in one sweep of his hand the Farm and the whole staff standing at the gates clapping.

Skywalker banged his head against the panel.

'Why didn't Qui-Gon allow me take my pod-racer?..'


	2. Static in the air

It was morning, and it came too soon.

Senior Planter Kenobi didn't generally harbour ill will towards this particular time of day, but after the madness he had been recently subjected to, he'd have really appreciated if it didn't have to be so – so – punctual. He punched the face of alarm clock – he'd got it for his last birthday and usually treated with as much respect as he could, and punched when he couldn't.

Because not only it was morning, it was _his_.

(Here we better leave Kenobi for some time to make himself presentable, and read up on AgriCorps Slang. It is vast, verbal and non-verbal, evolving, and beautifully simple.

For example, since growing a plant is in itself an itinerant process, and growing several thousand various plants is several thousand times more so, every hour in a day is scientifically picked, weighted, and accounted for. So every second Planter has to check the sprinklers, drippos (also used for watering), and many other automats which don't get any sleep (_come on, Kenobi, be a man, you have only been doing it for the last twelve years, what's one more day?_), but have to operate anyway, twice in 24 hours.

Therefore, in the morning you _morn_, and in the evening you _even_. It leaves the daytime free for actual work, which can't be pre-scheduled.

And a night is, of course, strictly optional.

But look! He has finally found it in himself to get up!)

'Aaah,' was the first thought our hero had after righting his undying timepiece and stretching and squeezing and buttoning himself into his combo. 'What a _mess_.'

Thinking so clearly and succinctly can only be achieved through years of toiling at a F-Fac (another colloquialism; "Farm-Factory" is the usual regional unit of the AC in this Sector), where only a year truly ends (and begins). Obi-Wan remembered everything that happened the day before as clearly as if it happened the day before, which it probably did…

_After depositing the boy at the Custodian's and explaining to him, with some bewilderment, that there wasn't anything Associative, planetary, and indeed cosmic about the office*, he towed the vehicle, which he suspected was held in one piece by Force alone, to the "Like-New" Repair Shop**, had his brain washed by the HM and pecked at by Chen-Ko, and finally, _finally_ came back to the Greenery – er, hothouse 5._

_The Muja plantlet he treated earlier waved at him a new leaf, a shade lighter than others, and smiled. Sure, Obi-Wan knew it couldn't smile with lips or teeth or anything a sentient creature would have used***, but it tried its best. We have had good nourishment, haven't we, he whispered lovingly. It is so much simpler with Mujas; nobody criticizes your choice of words, only your intent matters._

_Someone coughed behind him in a way a perfectly healthy person coughs when in actuality all they should have done was to keep a straight face and do nothing._

_Obi-Wan whirled around, reddening despite his Jedyism, and saw nobody. Strangely, it didn't feel reassuring._

'_Obi-Wan', said the nobody who must have coughed so offensively in a voice that was somewhat familiar, but not quite, 'listen. The boy _must_ be taught –'_

'Uh-huh,' agreed he, and nodded. This wasn't happening. He couldn't have given himself a heatstroke by riding a speeder for several hours in the blazing sun – surely he'd drop dead already; nor could he meditate himself into some dreamlike state like some Corellians used to – he hadn't touched Drasa's Secret Garden since being dared and drugged and very naïve; so why, oh why was he hallucinating?

'_It is _important_!' hissed nobody. 'He is the Chosen One – okay, okay, just a minute, I've got to get to him, _wait_ –'_

_And then there was silence._

_Senior Planter Kenobi backed out of the hothouse 5, sweat beading on his brow, and kept backing away until he bumped into hothouse 6._

Because in the silence that had cut his hallucination so abruptly he couldn't help discerning a metallic scratching, almost too soft to be heard.

_It was the sound of static, as impersonal and irritating as any static disrupting an important communication._

In the present time****, he had to morn, and morn he did. It relaxed the mind, feeding it nice, neat routine bit by invariable bit. He whistled merrily, tickling the rootlets of germinating Squishies (he knew vaguely they made a delicate dessert, a pinnacle of Alderaanian cooking, but for him they were his little greenies), and only felt his good mood evaporate and a roaring bad humour precipitate in its stead when he met The Boy.

He had already learned Skywalker's history of abuse, slavery and aborted studentship. Unfortunately, he couldn't bring himself to pity or at least to feel for him, for in the same while he had learned about Qui-Gon's death.

In the end, he believed neither.

It was so much easier to pretend that a great Jedy Knight Qui-Gon Jinn was roaming the depth of the Galaxy, seeking justice and finding adventure, laughing, fighting, getting wiser and odder by a light-year. Who was this nine-year-old sulking boasting _child_ (a word never applicable to a Jedy, even if they haven't completed their training) to tell him that Qui-Gon was defeated?

He knew, though, in his heart of hearts he knew he believed. No force but the Force could have led to Qui-Gon's demise, and haven't the Force already denied Obi-Wan the honour of being the man's Padawan?

Planter Kenobi inclined his head in greeting, a bit stiffly from lack of sleep.

'Hi,' said Skywalker. He stared at a drippo (basically, at a long plastic tube running over a row of Squishies with tiny holes placed strategically between plants) with such hungry eyes that Kenobi's right hand jerked to pull him aside.

'Watering system,' he pointed out, glad of mastering himself.

'Wizard.'

'Quite advanced, yes.'

There was a pause, not a natural peaceful one, but taught and brittle. Kenobi thought he heard something that he shouldn't have, a tinny echo of –

'I can show you around, if you'd like.'

'Cool!'

'The sprinkling machines, the pool –'

Here the boy's eyes grew as round as any Calamarian's.

'The _pool_? Like, there's _water_ in it?'

'Oh no, no. Never that corroding stuff. Liquid Fertilizer only.'

'Gah!'

He bit his lips – to smile would have been impolite – and led the way outside, where the sun has already added colour to landscape, and the grass the sound to the wind.

* In response to which Anakin only shrugged; a decade later Obi-Wan Kenobi would have translated the shrug as "stranger things had been faced and dealt with", but as of then he was still young and inexperienced.

** Mostly referred to as "Only-Not".

*** Obi-Wan's broad-mindedness was based on the assumption that if one didn't recognize a move as a possible assault, they should respond with friendliness. He had only been sadly mistaken three times, and after the third one learned to leave Drasa to sulk to her heart's content, though he never understood what kept coming over the girl with such astonishing regularity every Standard month.

**** But still long ago, remember?


	3. Interlude I

He watched a ray of light creep further inside the room in that hesitant, unswerving manner that made it seem a blade, made it seem alive. Etching its ray-bed in the soulless carpet.

His was, perhaps, the only door in the whole Temple that swung. Nobody could understand why he installed it instead of the practical sliding one. The only logical explanation, which somehow eluded his Jedi acquaintances, would be that he hadn't installed it at all.

The door, and the valiant ray now thinned by a draught, were a gift from a dear friend, and so like the giver. It flummoxed him when he first saw it, made his blood boil when he first tried to open it, and when he did get _in his own quarters_, it didn't stay closed! The hinges screeched when he returned from danger or boredom alike, and he had to oil them. The wood abused his toes when he failed to look where he went, compliant in his knowledge of any door opening before a Jedi. And he couldn't even complain. To whom? Mace imagined Master Yoda's look and vowed to replace the trap by something civilized.

Oh, sure. Like he didn't last week. And the week before that. And the week before...

How easily his thoughts fell into the groove the ray had cut.

There was a knock. _Another irritating archaic ritual_. Comlinks were there for a reason (though, come to think of it, he _still _was interrupted if someone commed him; it just felt the decent way to be bugged).

'Come in.'

The visitor entered, a solid shadow on the short-lived radar of color bleaching light, as naturally as if swinging doors were his specialty. Which, in a sense, they were.

'Master Dooku.' Mace stood up.

'Master Windu.'

Dooku threw him a glance, surprised to find him so serene and even smiling. Well. Couldn't hurt to stretch muscles once in a while.

'Please sit.'

'I came to you to discuss the Assignment 745b.' Dooku never beat around the bush. Mace nodded, more to himself.

'Privately? Surely the Council would like to hear you out.'

'I find myself lacking, Master.'

Taking into account Dooku's usual approach to impossible, Mace found this hard to believe.

'In what way?'

'I desire revenge.'

'It is not the Jedi way.'

Dooku frowned.

'I am aware of that, Master Windu. I shall do my best to contain this unbecoming urge, but I fear I shall lose the battle.'

And when Dooku said he feared doing something, he meant to do it. Full stop.

'Have you?' whispered Mace with suicidal clarity. He was no match for the famed warrior who had always been Knight first, everything else second.

'Not yet.'

_You're awfully understanding today, aren't you_. 'Then what do you propose?'

The elder man crossed his legs, his face pensive. There was a charged pause.

'If I… perish in the attempt, there must be someone competent to finish the deed.'

'Who?'

'It is best decided without my knowledge.'

Dooku was told to have his own scale of Padawanness, and Master Windu clearly had yet to grow from "youngling" into something respectable.

'Oh. I agree.'

'Then I shall set off. May the Force be with you, Councilor.'

'May the Force be with you.'

The door, when Dooku closed it, proved to be completely lightproof.


	4. Interlude II

Zabraks were reputed to have a longer lifespan than the average humanoid.

They had once taken pain to ensure this achievement throughout the Galaxy, and though there were races that stubbornly pushed the inflection point of the overall longevity to the right of the Zabrakian non-inconsiderable 65 Coruscant years, such races were few and far between.

Sith were reputed to survive the least favorable conditions. Their whole history could be logically reduced to a long chain of Feats of Survival, irregularly studded with showy Reigns of Terror, so basically the least favorable conditions were their native habitat.

Sith, too, had once taken pain to promote their range. In the end, it was reduced. Thankfully, it did not coincide with that of Zabraks, or both would have been wiped from existence.

But be one both a Zabrak and a Sith, it would be stupid to turn one's back on Senator Palpatin and expect it to stay unstabbed.

Darth Maul stood before the closed entrance to Palpatin's private quarters, waiting for his master's order for them to open and quivering in bewildered humiliation. Palpatin, prudish law-enforcer that he was, had a special corridor installed for his exotic guests. The stench of Trade Association lingered, taunting his olfactory centers.

He wouldn't be able to de-activate the lock if he knew the password, which was changed on a whim and never used twice; and being more inclined to fight than idleness, he mentally rerun their last conversation. That it landed him with an undoable task wasn't a surprise; hardly any task he'd ever been assigned looked doable even after he'd managed them, so for the most part he tried not to scare himself with his past feats. Here he was, Conqueror of Naboo and Slayer of Qui-Gon Jinn (he preferred not to dwell on how that little operation ended with Naboo de-blockaded, Neimodian fleet scattered, and him in a radioactive shaft without so much as a lightsaber)…

'Remember Tatooine,' Palpatin advised him in a prophetic whisper, and Maul shuddered, gliding through the doors. His face contorted by rage and fear, he lowered his hood, hoping that would be seen as a sign of resignation.

_As if he could ever forget Tatooine._ The only bright spot about that fiasco was that he'd won a canteen of water by betting on the Skywalker boy. Of course, had Skywalker lost and remained a slave, he'd have been an easier prey. Everything would have been easier. But Maul staunchly held that even in the gloomiest gloom there must be silver lining, even if someone had to prick himself to death sewing it there.

He liked sewing. His worst fear was that being discovered. But he couldn't rely on someone else to clout his numerous Cloaks of Doom, and sparring was hell on seams in certain places.

He was a self-reliant, widely looked for Sith. With ideals. He could find one little boy in the vast recesses of the Republic, without a clue where to start searching…

Darth Maul promised himself he would plan, plan, and then plan some more before he moved to further his master's wish. He had the respectable excuse of needing a new weapon. Building it would require several weeks.

Maul carefully recounted the breathtaking complexity of double blade. Some tension seeped from his hunched posture (the ceiling was low. It did not offend Neimodians; they seldom stayed on their feet after visiting with the Senator.)

Several _months_.

Several months longer than your average humanoid.


	5. Meet your supervisor

'So, where are you going to work?'

Skywalker made a face.

'I told I'd like to be your partner, but she sent me off to Chen-Ko. Said she's awesome.'

Obi-Wan frowned. That high and mighty secretary never climbed down from her durasteel tower, only gossiped and made management mistakes.

'You better forget you heard that.'

Drasa was, in fact, widely known as an AWEsome girl, but in most cases, it deciphered as 'animal wife extraordinaire', and Senior Planter wasn't certain the imp would attach sufficient respect to this hard-won title.

'Don't you have to help out there?'

'At the Animal Husbandry? Nope, they kicked me out when I tried to milk.'

'Manually?' Just what kind of civilization existed on Tatooine?

The kid was looking at him like he was stupid. 'Sure.'

They were standing before a sun-bleached board, where Morning Protocols were posted. Just as he'd expected, there was an additional note hastily scribbled at the end of the list. The rest was pretty mundane.

'What's this?' Skywalker looked up and crossed his eyes, but the sheet was too high for him to see clearly.

'Your penance,' Kenobi grumbled. He hated - or, well, intensely disliked - when they increased total workload the next day after sending in a newbie. It made no sense. Until the children learned what to do, who to ask, and when to wake up, assigning them anything of import was a straight road to failure, which meant their jobs had to be executed by someone experienced.

'How much?'

This one will land on all four, Senior Planter thought. 'Six hours a day.'

'With Chen-Ko?'

There were two of them, no more, and yet it felt as though there was a queue behind him, and Jedi didn't do spooked.

He recalled Drasa's eruptions of yesterday.

'With me.'

The queue shrugged their invisible shoulders and dispersed.

...He had to give it to the brat; Skywalker was a quick study. He whined about the stifling humdity, the screeching of the panels nobody ever oiled, the mush they ate at the Canteen, and a trillion other things, but he never whined about the same twice, and he did as he was told, mostly. Well, everyone has played hide-and-seek in the hothouses at least once. Kenobi sometimes, when having too much time on his hands, mused about what could be found between those steaming aisles.

Or who.

'Howdy, grass eater?'

'Todaying,' he replied wearily, not turning from the pool where the kid was exerting what felt like their combined energy.

Drasa, her coveralls stained with by-products and Other Stuff, arms akimbo, squinted at the bobbing head. She was not really angry. He wanted to believe she was also totally adequate, but self-denial had never been his forte.

'Huh. Babysitting.'

'He's all yours.'

She touched her eye-patch, grinned her pirate's grin, and whistled.

'Hey there, missing aide!'

'Hello,' ventured the head with distrust.

'You amphibian?'

'What?'

'No? Splendid. Means I have a chance,' and with that, she leaped in, somersaulting high in the air and letting out an ear-splitting yell.

'You are MINE!'

A second later Obi-Wan scrambled to catch her electronic keys to 'The Stables' before the water irrevocably fried them.

Half an hour later, when he had them both breathing on their own, dried and fed, Kenobi finally got to tell her that the boy was desert-bred, could not swim well, and sometimes, just sometimes, one did not need to scare one's aide into punctuality on the very first day.

'Worked with you,' Chen-Ko shrugged indifferently.

'I thought you were deranged?'

'I am, o hopeless one. I am.'

'You'll scar him for life.'

'Tough.'

'Drasa,' he warned. And there was a presence behind his growl, a baring of the teeth. She snapped her fingers.

'Chill. I'll share.'

'Master Obi-Wan,' whispered the bundle on his bed. 'I'm afraid.'

At that, the Corellian's face darkened, and she stalked out of the room. Obi-Wan closed his eyes. People were different. Responsibilities weren't.

'You can stay here tonight. I do not have toys for you to play - '

'I don't play! I'm an adult.'

'Then,' Obi-Wan said earnestly, as much to distract his guest from his tired tantrum as to prove he wasn't as bitter as the one-eyed girl, and maybe out of spite, too, if he was being honest, 'there is always the Jedi Code. We should remember it. I myself reread it quite often.'

'But we're not Jedi.'

'But we _are_, Anakin.' He touched the keys Drasa failed to demand back. Probably a hint to return her 'property' in the morning. Except that she never forgot a thing.

'Do you know there was one time when Qui-Gon had to go undercover and trained parrots to earn a living?..'


	6. Interlude III

A/N: this chapter contains a very debatable portrayal of Qui-Gon Jinn. I am of two minds if I should delete it at all. Please tell me what you think of it.

As I have read little of the JA verse, I'll probably make mistakes, for which I ask your pardon in advance. Sorry for the short chapters, I read too much to write more.

I am also having difficulties with the plot; something's planned, but the general direction still eludes me. Any suggestions? *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*

The landscape they were put in was an illusion of the Hall of a Thousand Fountains, and the old Jedi Master found his heart aching with longing. However, if he had to ignore his surroundings to concentrate fully on his self-appointed task, he would make himself do just that.

"The boy must be trained."

"Must he?"

"He will be dangerous otherwise," Qui-Gon pointed out respectfully but adamantly. It was more a result of lifelong conditioning to be a negotiator first, swordsman second. His manner, for the first time in his experience, did not matter a whit; the very fact that he was _arguing with the Force_, or with his perception of it - _and wasn't that a slippery road_ - eclipsed everything else in his mind.

The foundation of all life in the world, which he after his death had inexplicably begun to dissent from, elected to put on the image of his Fallen apprentice, Xanatos. Qui-Gon suspected there was a reason for it, as well as for his sudden post-mortem defiance, but refused to be sidetracked into philosophy. So hubris had been his downfall, time and again; that did not translated into him being wrong this time.

'Proud', he was; but he denied the 'scared of not existing anymore' part.

Xanatos smirked.

"Dangerous." _By Mace's bleeding stubbed toes, they sent him to annoy me. A commendable choice_. It was so easy to think of the other party as the Jedi Council, he never questioned the pronoun. There was also lasting disbelief that he'd been allowed to question at all; wasn't one supposed to find the right answers when one became one with the Force?

"Ah, but you haven't, have you?"

Qui-Gon straightened, knowing he had to deal with the baggage of his vexation on his own. He'd tried releasing it, but you can't have it both ways; he supposed it was fair, and had to quash a streak of trepidation at having just _judged the Force_. He needed to center himself, and now the axis of his actions was wrenched from its focus, he was officially at sea. _At sea, in the dark, and overboard_.

"Anything else you want?" The other yawned.

"The boy deserves to be trained," he replied, mastering himself. Unflinchingly offering up his confusion, conviction and even the shame of his mutiny, submitting but not submitting.

"That's something new. How does he deserve special treatment?" There was a flash of his once-pupil, gone instantly.

"He earned it."

"He did not!" Xanatos roared, fists balled.

"He won," baited Qui-Gon. An idea was forming in his mind, and he gambled on it, throwing caution to the wind. There did appear to be some wind, ruffling his mane and his opponent's curls.

"So be it," hissed the Dark Jedi. "He who is a menace to himself and everybody around him, who is strong and feared for his strength, he will be trained by someone you once trusted with your life."

"Glad we settled that out." He hoped it meant what he hoped it meant, because it rang true.

"If you join me on the Dark Side," thundered the yellow-eyed youth. Qui-Gon was mildly impressed.

"I didn't know it was possible." _To insert infomercials in the afterlife_.

Xanatos shrugged smugly.

"I respectfully decline," Master Jinn bowed minutely and turned to walk off. There was a shout of rage. _Well, at least I was not mistaken about _that_._

"You cannot leave!"

"Really? Why should I stay?"

The other was momentarily flustered.

"To watch the consequences of your hasty request unravel before your horrified gaze." But the words lacked power.

Jinn smiled. "I might as well." He sat beside his wayward apprentice on the checkered tiles of the Hall. _For Force's sake, I don't want another daycare duty. I'm _retired_._

_Oh_, sang the wind, _and_ _whom would you be addressing?_


	7. Basically, a conspiracy

A/N: an update, well, sort of a gap-filler. Don't know when I'll have time for the next one, though I do have a tenuous plot somewhere ahead. For now, some soap for you, gentle reader.

Senior Planter woke up, unglued his jaw from the table, scratched at the drool that dried on his cheek, saw that the child was still out cold, grabbed the keys, and crept out. His combo must have shrunk overnight, he was itchy in the most likely (for a man of his experience) places.

Nodding to other early-risers, he made his way to the Ambush Where His Nemesis Sat.

"I have good news and bad news," Chen-Ko chirped, arms akimbo, her back to him and a dismembered droid's head under her graciously arched foot. (Her cover-all, supposedly a jumpsuit in its former life, was not all high-fashion, but people who wore them daily could well fill out the rest.)

The head was silent, only the lamps in its orbs were winking pathetically in some semblance of a code.

Kenobi toed an arm; like other appendages spread across Chen-Ko's hut, it appeared torn off. She had a hobby of building robots in her 'spare time' (he could honestly believe she meant 'in my sleep', but was too wise to ask). One of them even was able to re-construct himself after being put apart. It had been tiny, crude as designs go, and extremely obnoxious. She gave it away as a present to a boy from Logistics, Bony or Tony or Moany. A lost-lost combination, according to her satisfied rant.

This one looked like another of her rare Epic Fails.

"Bad, please." With Drasa, the stationary bad news was that one couldn't ask for good news first.

"If this thing tells the truth, the whelp's got possessions."

"Listen, um. He has not been trained properly. He's never even read the _Code_ before he came here."

Picking her trophy up in a malicious manner, she turned to him like the Goddess of Sandstorm. Obi-Wan stood his ground. For about two years, he just as stubbornly talked to her from outside, but then decided to grow up and not let everybody see her chasing him all across the campus.

"Than he should be sent back to his parents or whoever took care of him."

He hated it when she embraced rationalism. It brought out the worst in her.

"He can't. He's been a slave. His mother _is_ one, too."

The pirate sighed, tossed him the head and gestured to take it out with him. Carefully bowing so as not to bump into the _taerrera_ hat ("Wicker basket?" "You wicker basket!") hanging above the door, he crawled outside.

He secretly liked Drasa's 'digs' ('digs' on a good day, 'den' on a bad); there were trillions of different gadgets and gizmos and thingamajigs, and she could explain every single one. The only thing absent was space, but that wasn't really a problem, since Chen-Ko maintained they all were living in space anyway and one couldn't escape from it by simply closing the front door.

He hoped she would not tuck the droid's parts away and forget where they were, if it did belong to Anakin.

_Anakin_. Anakin, too, was building them? Kenobi ground his teeth.

"Hey, what about the other half? Or am I on a 'bad-bad' diet today?"

"Oh, yes. His Mom's on the way."

"What?"

"The boy's mother has run away and will be here shortly."

Senior Planter cursed. No, really, he did. It was an ugly duckling of a curse, so we wouldn't tell you what it was, to spare his dignity, but as any ugly duckling, it only had to wait a bit and spread its wings. Then lo! A beautiful future.

Drasa had the audacity to hug him happily. "You did it! Ouchie-nouchie-someone-help-me-Obi-Wan, you just made my day!"

"Wish you made mine," he groused, completely oblivious to her Blink of Re-Boot. "What are we to do with her? Haven't you met Mappins recently?"

Kenobi's frustration bears explaining. Pory Mappins (the Porey One, as she was usually thought of) was the very same incompetent know-it-all who threw Skywalker into the toughest department ever. As they all stewed in, to an extent, planned economy, and resources were draconianly monitored, addition of another mouth did count; and for Porey to _not_ send Mrs. Skywalker right back to her _rightful owner_ -

Obi-Wan swallowed bile. Chen-Ko, watching him and reading him like scars on a rancor's muzzle, smiled sparely.

"Rationing, to begin with. Food, clothes, work."

"We can't hide a woman for long - especially if she is to work with us. She will stand out like a - like a _shaak_ in a pack of - of sheep."

"Lame," sighed a disembodied voice. It was young, clear, irritated, and _solid_. Obi-Wan jumped.

"He _is_ learning," another voice, the one that he'd done his best to forget hearing, had a better outlook on, er, existence. Senior Planter wrenched his attention to the present that was actually present.

"Not a woman," Drasa stared at the head, intimidating it into growing more silent. It did not rattle, did not wiggle, and even turned off its receptors-emitters.

"A ghost."


	8. Dreamers and doers

In the time when all of it happened, as well as, probably, in any other time, much could be said for staying put on a planet as a means to get insight into its ins and outs. Volcanoes erupting, landslides shovelling tons of soil on unsuspecting passers-by (or were they passers-under?), that sort of things.

Mostly mundane and unpleasant. When you hop from one world to another, you normally get to know more of the Extremely Tragic Stuff (like when your shuttle blows up before the take-off) or of the Useless Tourist Ads (like that you hadn't, in fact, booked the best rooms in the most convenient hotel).

Obi-Wan hadn't been to many places, nor had he seen many people; those he had seen mostly tended to react to trouble the _u__sual_ way. Now, this child he'd left sleeping peacefully, this repair expert with the temerity to wear an UglyCorpse t-shirt... ahem... this ray of sunshine was of that minority who manage to smile just a second before the blast and to bemoan a second-best suit for years afterwards.

In exactly that succession.

This minority he shared with a Drasa Chen-Ko. And if the analogy were to logically unfurl, the child would be just as uncontrollable upon hearing the arguably good news of his mother coming along.

Which was why Kenobi wasn't thrilled to bits when he heard about The Ghost. He was having problems with two parasites already, and _they_ were at least incorporeal! Having lived in the hodgepodge of AC for half of his life, well he could fancy the mayham to ensue if a Ghost were added to that flammable mix.

'Wait.'

'No.'

He didn't say please. It paid to cut straight to the point when you challenged the girl, for that was the only chance you'd snatch. Ever.

'Porey will hang you by the guts.'

Chen-Ko actually paused for a moment, and he felt bad for plagiarizing from his protege's vast reserve of curses so blatantly.

'That Mary Poppins lifts a finger, I'm hacking into the reports. She'll never prove a thing.'

'She's Force-sensitive.' But that was only a hunch. As the Order could not fully man the 'Corps themselves (there being other matters of Galactical importance to attend to), most hands there lacked midichlorians to yank a flimsiplast.

'She's _anti_sensitive. The Force doesn't know she lives.' Porey had just refused Drasa funds for a new nerf-milking apparatus.

'She'll lodge one with the Counsellor!'

A Counsellor was a Jedi the brass saddled with monitoring the potential Force-users. Most of them never intervened in the runnings of the system, but once in a while they did deign to step down to negotiate an inter-departmental quarrel.

They also were rotated irregularly, and you never knew who will answer the call.

'I can take on anybody but Jocasta Nu.' Chen-Ko was thinking along the same lines.

Obi-Wan didn't name the one Master he'd have trusted to judge fairly.

'Jocasta's got a Templeful of little buggers to terrorize.'

That was that young feisty voice again, sounding bored out of its mind.

'Get lost.'

'Sorry?'

'Have to feed. Y'know. The boy.'

'Oh.' She was at the head again. Its emitters blinked and shone evenly. 'See you later.'

'Teach him, while you're at it,' the elder voice supplied. 'I say, the connection has improved.' The last words were muffled, as if it turned to speak to someone else.

Senior Planter clenched his teeth. A myriad of responses flashed before his eyes. If he were a sensible man, he would have turned his tail and contacted the Counsellor himself, especially since Master Nu didn't seem to have been reposted; Force-troubles were rare but deadly, and those who sought help were never denied it. He had, after all, used to be a sensible man. On this particular occasion, though, he threw caution to the wind (there did appear to be some wind). He could not reason with others – fine! Fine! He was Obi-Wan Make-It-Work Kenobi, he'd survived the Septennial Draught twice and with no losses among the greenies.

Unlike the present crisis, he'd had reliable helpers then. He trudged back to his place, despondent and inattentive to his surroundings. That no muja skins or rampant speeders (dubbed _slowers_ for unsurpassed delaying abilities) caused him grief was in itself a mystery. Mujas unglued from the pavement and rolled away, slowers veered off and stopped dead, and no M.P. (Morning Person, one on the fist shift) witnessed any of it.

Anakin was awake and self-employed. Obi-Wan pulled him out of his 'wardrobe'.

'What are you – '

'You don't have a robe!'

'Of course I don't.'

'And you said we're Jedi?'

_Ooh, t__ricky subject again_. Kenobi met the child's gaze unflinchingly, imagining himself on the carpet for clearing a hazardous experiment. That he filed most of the difficult cases was nobody's business; they had to have a scapegoat if there were some fuss later.

'We don't have to have a symbol of it on us.' _Lame, old man._ 'We bear it in our hearts.' No sooner had he uttered that that the pomposity made him cringe.

'Sure.'

'Breakfast?' Obi-Wan tried. The boy nodded and went out, shoulders stiff. Kenobi bit his lip.

'Wait.' _I do remember a similar beginning..._ 'Sit down, please.'_ He sat down. Oh by the Correllian Hatter_... (the Correllian Matter, or Hatter, or sometimes simply the Critter, was a legendary Jedi who could wear any Contracting Party down to an agreement. The Unwritten Lore, a hit with younglings but also popular with Padawans and even Knights of some renown, had preserved other, less gracious, tidings about the man, like that he'd been a spendthrift with time and could only talk for so long by the dint of being totally, irreversibly, and gloriously mad. One story involved a lady in distress.) 'Your mother will arrive shortly.'

'What?' Skywalker was all ears.

'Who?' roared the impertinent Younger Parasite.

'Well done,' whispered the Elder one. 'Shmi's a decent woman. She will help...' Something _zipped_ through the air, cutting the voices off. Obi-Wan blinked. He was clutched by the shoulders, and there had obviously been some shaking attempted.

'Guh.'

'...commed her after they said they're not taking me, and now she's coming. Right?'

'Yes, Anakin.'

'She will live here?'

He hesitated.

'She _will_. Where does she get to sleep? She'll need a sep'rate room from ours.'

They didn't make it to breakfast that morning, which did nothing to improve Senior Planter's general outlook, but they did screen half of his living space off for a 'henhouse', which inexplicably, he found himself not protesting about.


End file.
